18th Annual Holiday Open House
Here are a few pictures taken at our Open House the first weekend in August!
Theresa got into the spirit of the day and donned the witch's hat from our display!
Tonia's taking down the curtain and letting people enter the magical displays...there was a line anxiously waiting!
One of the displays inside our window - lots of Mill Hill bead kits and a Christmas tree full of Blackbird's miniature stockings. The Bead & Button kits flew out the door and I have already reordered several times! Here are a few closeups - they do look so much better in person because it's hard to capture the "sparkle" and texture of the beads
Cathedral - Mill Hill Bead & Button kit $12.95 Victorian House
Gingerbread House Needlework Shoppe
My tree of Cricket Collection acorns and a needlepoint "family" of pilgrims and Indians celebrating Thanksgiving. This Thanksgiving set is by the same designer as the Nativity I featured a couple of weeks ago in a Tuesday Tidbits.
A closeup of the Blackbird Tree - I love this old silver tinsel tree!
This is my collection of Homespun Elegance Santas - they are from a series Sandra calls "Cinnamon Stick Christmas" and she's up to about 21 I think. I stitched the first one in 1993 after visiting my parents shortly after they'd opened the shop. Since they are stitched on 7 ct Klostern, I took it on the plane home to California and got a lot of it done while traveling. I'd never worked on 7ct before and loved using all six strands - it went to quickly! I made one change to the Santa and used some Angora yarn for his beard. Stitching this Santa probably was the seed planted in me to want to move to Florida and work with mom & dad in the shop!
The next summer when the Santa came out I was living in Florida and working in the shop. I had discovered fun Rainbow Gallery threads and wanted to use some on the Santa so I changed a lot of the threads and we made kits with my revised directions. This was the "Noah's Ark" Santa and we originally framed him. He didn't look right framed so mom ended up taking him apart and making him into a door stop (they all have bricks in them!). We loved him so much we never framed any more of them - they're all stand-ups except for the first because we liked him framed and wanted people to see you could do different things with them - even the pattern shows them stitched on smaller fabric and framed. A couple of years ago the Santa was just the shoulders and head in profile so we made a pillow - he's ended up being one of my favorites.
This is one of my favorite collections of stitched items - sometimes people ask if I get tired of having so many - the answer is an emphatic NO! I do have one older unfinished one in my stash and I'm still working on last year's which will also be made into a pillow. By the way, the Santa on the blue
fabric is from Lizzie Kate - it just happens to look good with my stand-up collection!
The wood beam across the front of the shop is strung with garland year round to display my needlepoint ornaments. Another great way to display ornaments without a tree is to drape garland around a doorway
Some of the collection of Prairie Schooler Santas from the last five years - one for each year we've been open. Our older ones now live in the guest room in North Carolina!
Here's this year's Santa - it came the week before the Open House and Tonia literally whipped it up in two days! For the first time, we have one on linen! Dad stitched all the others and he's strictly an Aida guy!
This is what you see when you walk in the front door of the shop. Our pie safe is currently decked out in Halloween!
A closer view of the front...
Models from the JBW Designs Trunk Show
More models from the JBW Designs Trunk Show
More models from the JBW Designs Trunk Show
More models from the JBW Designs Trunk Show - the trees on the tree are so cute and we have the white feather trees for sale.
Aprons from JBW
Models from Erica Michaels - they're all done on 40ct silk gauze and spectacular! The name tags are the size of business cards to give you an idea as to scale. Below are some close-ups.
This one shows the designs can be stitched on regular size fabric - they'll just come out larger.
Fun things from Anne Brinkley designs - sterling pewter boxes, needlepoint canvases to go in the tops, needlepoint pre-finished bookmarks, and Stitch Tiles - I love these and will post individual photos below.
A close up of the bookmarks
"Parking Lots" - needle magnets with a thread and a ribbon between the magnets to prevent losing just one magnet!
A closeup of the silver round box.
Blue & Green Tile - $34.95 reg Open House Special Price $27.95
Dk Teal Tile - $34.95 reg Open House Special Price $27.95
Peach & Blue Tile - $34.95 reg Open House Special Price $27.95
Red Tile - $34.95 reg Open House Special Price $27.95
Green Tile - $34.95 reg Open House Special Price $27.95
Turquoise Tile - $34.95 reg Open House Special Price $27.95
This shows one of my Color Delights with a tile - these would be fun to frame together (with the correct spacing) - this photo is just to show the idea...
by the way, the orange design on the right is my latest "Color Delight" and is called Tangerine.
Since we're talking ideas, I laid out nine of my Color Delights to show you my vision of framing them all together (at least some of them!). So many things can be done with these 4x4 designs - I need more time to do them all!
Models from Carolyn Mitchell - they're all done on 18ct canvas.
More models from Carolyn Mitchell
In My Wildest Dreams from Carolyn Mitchell - this is a design to pick a color family and then use up some stash - it looks really fun to stitch!
My latest Color Delights - Indigo and Tangerine
A shot of one of the displays...
This is my Duality piece for the Retreat in January - I obviously need to get going on it! Part of the fun of this class/retreat will be seeing all the color combinations come to life.
This cute piece is a Mill Hill pin/magnet kit and is done on perforated paper. Pop in your favorite school picture and you've got a quick gift and sweet memento. This is my nephew Johnny (it's an old photo I took off my frig - it will look a lot nicer on the frig now since it's 'framed'
Christmas patterns from Lizzie Kate finished as a quilted wallhanging.
Christmas by the Letters from Lizzie Kate
Quaker Santa from Workbasket
This is a picture of the center pages in the new Wichelt 40th Anniversary book - it's a fabulous design of the Mill Hill Village Shoppes.
My progress on Blackbird's Anniversaries of the Heart - I folded the fabric to hide the blank spot in the middle waiting for the Bonus pattern! I hope it comes soon!
Tonia's progess on her "One Nation" flag.
Emily's progress on her "Quaker Virtues" - she's stitching it with Cranberry Sampler Threads and Dark Chocolate for the words...
Cece stitched Bent Creek's first Branch series...
Shepherd's Bush "Holy Night" - stitched on 18ct linen over two, this stitched up pretty quick. One doorway to fill in and it'll be in the frame shop!
This is darling piece from Shakespeare's Peddler was a series of threadpacks from Crescent Colours. The kits are still available...
This nativity design from Just Another Button Company is a free pattern with the purchase of the buttons. I stitched it up during a stitch-in a long time ago and it continues to be one of my favorites and a bestseller. I love nativity sets!
This Thanksgiving set is from the same designer as my Needlepoint Nativity - I love working these small canvases and this one was a bit quicker to complete than the Nativity! I was born on Thanksgiving so this piece is really special for me.
An older design my mom did just to use the flipflops and the fun wild colored metallic! The pattern is still available.
me concentrating on something... this is the look of focus and working hard for you!
A shot of our bathroom - we like you to have something to look at while you're in there - one of our customers calls it "Stitching Porn"!
